Advice on lighting for this room-prepping for sale

We've just evicted the renter from our last out-of-state rental and will be putting it on the market. We're up here this weekend making plans and doing a bunch of the work.

The thing that's got me stumped is what to do about the lighting in this room.

It's a living room/dining room rectangle in a small (900 sf) house that's 50+ years old. There's a 3-light track fixture on one end (where the DR would be) and the room is cave-dark. We're painting the walls and removing the awning, so that will help, but it still needs lights. It's got a drop ceiling that's only about 2" below the original ceiling, and said original ceiling is aluminum so can lights are out of the question.

Are you painting a lighter color? If so, I'd wait and see what the room looks like afterwards. It's not all that uncommon for a living room to have no overhead lighting, so I don't think it is absolutely necessary to add more lighting to the ceiling.

Will you be staging the room or will it be empty when shown?

One thing you might consider is painting the tracks that the ceiling panels are on. Making the entire ceiling white would improve the over-all look of the room, IMO.

Hi Weedy, O.O What is the room's dimensions? Does the window(s) on the long wall extend across its length? Have a few ideas percolating in the coffee pot...

You mentioned this is a dining/living room rectangle, and tends to be dark. Is it "dark" dark or "cozy & intimate" dark ;-)

At 900-sq' total, maybe the house is more "cozy & intimate" overall in its appeal...especially with those luscious floors. (900-sq' sounds palatial compared to the 550-sq' I lived in a long time ago...with DH, two kids, two dogs, and two cats.)

If you can rebox the ceiling light(s), please let me know, plus room dimensions. I can comp what I'm imagining if you'd like. A vintageish chandy in the dining room and complimentary sculpted light in the living room.

I have a combo living room/dining room and the only overhead lighting I have is in the dining room end. Rest of lighting is provided by 2 table lamps. When I first viewed the house it was vacant, and it didn't bother me not to see overhead lighting in the living room. Actually I didn't expect to see any in that portion of the house.